Sender's Report
It was 6:28 PDT when I arrived at the remote viewing site.
I was carrying an IASD shoulder bag and a folding chair. While seeking a
place to settle down, I heard the shrill sound of a leaf blower coming from
the front yard of a nearby neighbor's house. As I began to walk along the
wire mesh fence that separates the water company property and the park,
I tried, not too successfully, to ignore the whine. After about 10 irritating
minutes, it stopped. The only other thing I heard during this time was the
sound of crunching as I walked atop mounds of eucalyptus leaves, which had
fallen from a tree that grew near the fence.
Leaving the chair and bag underneath an oak tree, I walked
back to the eucalyptus carrying only my notebook and pen, plus camera hanging
from my wrist. The air temperature was warm: about 79 degrees (F). When
I touched a bit of peeling eucalyptus bark, it broke off in my hand. I tried
to smell the bark, the dried leaves underfoot and the new sprouts of greenery
on the trunk of the tree, but there wasn't much odor.
While walking the length of the property, my eyes were
generally directed upward, looking at the nest. There was no hawk in that
tree or in the others nearby that had also been stripped of leaves and bark.
I looked carefully into the greenery below them, but I couldn't spy the
hawk at any of its usual perches. I took a few pictures of the nest from
different viewpoints.
Stopping near the far end, I quickly sketched the nest
and tree branches. Just then, I spotted a bird...of the mechanical kind.
A large, white airliner was crossing the blue sky high above me. It had
4 puffy parallel trails of white wake trailing behind it. From my perspective,
it came within a few feet of the nest, before it disappeared behind the
eucalyptus.
Because the overhanging oak tree branches obscured my view,
I moved the chair into the open, as close as I could get to the nest. Then
I sat down, pen and notebook in hand to make notes. I spent a lot of time
looking upwards, searching for the hawk. Then a robin redbreast landed on
a green branch directly underneath the nest. First, it put on a musical
show. Ter-tweet. Chirp, chirp (4 times). The performance ended with a Chirp-Cheep.
The robin preened its wings a bit and flew away.
I began to pay attention to the other birds in the area.
There were lots of birdcalls with chirps and twitters. I heard the squawk
of a scrub jay and the piercing sound of a hummingbird whose breast shone
black/gold as it reflected the setting sun. Some birds fluttered across
the sky; others dove like rockets through the trees. A couple chased each
other through the grove. Some called as they flew; some soared on silent
wing.
There was a bird that flew quite near the nest, but it
wasn't a hawk. It was a California yellow-billed magpie. Its wings were
spread to reveal a dramatic band of contrasting feather colors: white against
black. It wasn't surprising to see that there were several magpies in the
area. They nest in both oak and eucalyptus.
At 7:00, the glade was almost quiet. So was the neighborhood
on my walk home. Must be dinnertime, I thought. | 
